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+We were very excited to be given a rating from Ofsted of Outstanding in All Areas in March this year.

During the Summer the children at Daisy Chain enjoyed learning all sorts of things.

We spent a lot of time thinking about being kind. Kind to each other and to the environment and the creatures that live in it. We stated a recycling scheme so the children could sort their lunch rubbish into bins for plastics, paper and card and fruit and vegetable waste ready for the compost bins. We also took care of our plants and nature area.

We had topics based on the children’s interests and learnt about Under the Sea, practiced our physical skills during Circus Activities, Were fascinated by Magical Mysteries (trying experiments, bubble painting, exploring bubbles big enough to stand in, making potions). We also celebrated the Royal Wedding with a selection of different activities.

We had visits from our school leavers new reception teachers from Westbury Infants, Bitham Brook and Westbury Leigh schools. we even had a visit from the goats that live at Westbury Leigh School!

Some nice Ladies from Dental Care Westbury came along to talk about our teeth and how to keep them clean and strong.

We also had some Dads, Grandads and Uncles visit during the week before Father’s Day.

In September we welcomed our new families. The new children and their parents and carers attended two induction days before the other children returned to Daisy Chain after the summer break. This gave them a chance to settle in and familiarise themselves with the setting.

We were excited that the new Mud Kitchen had been completed by Norma’s Husband Nick. With lots of bowls and two cookers there is plenty of room for several children to play at once. All kinds of resources have been chopped and mixed, herbs, fruit, stones, seeds, sunflower heads and pumpkins.

Before half term we covered various topics including………..

Pirates – hunting for and counting treasure numbers in the sand pit, pirate coins in sand and looking for sea creatures hidden around the setting. We made paper octopus and practiced out scissor skills and learnt how to carry scissors safely.

As the weather changed we talked about the new season of Autumn and used natural resources to count with and make pictures., used dry leaves to make wreaths, learnt about germs and how to wash our hands and talked about what you wear in cold weather.

We brought in our cuddly toys and donations in October for the Royal United Hospital Forever Friends appeal and were amazed when the Forever Friends Big Ted came to visit us. Some children were a little nervous as he was very big, but others confidently gave him a hug or a ‘high five’.

The sunflowers were removed from our growing patch and thoroughly explored by the children who were asked what they wanted to plant next. Their replies included pink flowers for the bees and pop corn. We planted some pink flowers, radishes and cabbages. The slugs have enjoyed the cabbages!

After the Half Term break we all dressed up for Halloween and had a pumpkin party. Our daily adult led activities were based on the Every Child a Talker document and were focussed on Listening and attention, understanding, speaking , social communication and speech sounds.

We have book Bags available for children to borrow and enjoy at home. We have 2 new bags one with a dog theme and the other with a penguin theme. Inside there are 3 books, a toy and some laminated cards to practice mark making skills and numbers on. There is also a dry wipe pen and a cloth so you can use them right away.

We have had a busy year at Daisy Chain this year. We started in September with a selection of activities based on the Every Child a Talker statements which we use to help us assess children’s language development. Listening games, memory games and games to help us pronounce speech sounds clearly such as Kim’s game, Chatter Box and Silly Soup all contributed to the fun.

These were followed by Bear themed activities. Honey sandwich making, Ted’s Bake Off, sorting bears by size, sequencing the Goldilocks story and making bears from shapes.

November found us Being Healthy. We talked about and tried printing with fruit, learnt about germs and hand washing, practiced our hand eye co ordination chopping vegetables for soup. talked about cleaning our bodies, and cleaning our teeth, thought about what makes a healthy lunch. We also worked on Weather themed activities making rainbows, looking at the water cycle and umbrellas.

By the time December arrived we were well in the throws of Christmas activities…. using presents to learn shapes, making paper chains, snowflake printing, rice crispy Christmas pudding cakes. pomanders from cloves and oranges (excellent for hand eye co- ordination).

We had our Christmas party which was enjoyed by all. Dave Hickory entertained us and Father Christmas arrived at the end to hand out gifts to all the children.

January found us trying out activities based on the book ‘Stick Man’, How my body works and also a Fantasy theme as the children were interested in magic stories and games. We made potions with fruit and flowers.

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February brought a Super Hero theme followed by Under the Sea. The highlight of the Under the Sea theme was having real dead fish for the children to explore. Finding out that some of them have teeth and investigating their fins and tails.

The ladies worked creatively with the theme of Books in March. Dinosaurs and skeletons, sorting dogs by size, hungry caterpillars and spiders. We then had ‘Fun with Maths’ . Parking cars in numbered car park bays to help with number recognition, using triangles to make elephant puppets, using containers and rice to explore full and empty/ heavy and light and using shapes to make cat pictures. We also looked at clocks and the children were introduced to time related language..

Easter themed activities were then the order of the day. Matching egg patterns, Easter egg collage, chocolate nest cakes, sequencing the Humpty Dumpty story and using egg shells to make faces which grew cress hair. We had our Easter Bonnet Parade in the church as there is plenty of room there for family members to sit and watch the parade comfortably before joining in with the Easter Song time.

The Summer Term saw lots of sunny days, some were a little too hot! The children as always were taught the importance of sun cream and hats and the ladies made lots of shady areas in the garden. The Daisy Chain rule of ‘No hat, no garden’ was revisited along with other safety activities During ‘Safety Week’. Safety with tools, not touching hot and sharp objects, crossing roads safely and we talked about our bodies, saying ‘No’ and the NSPCC ‘PANTS’ rule and what is in your pants is private.

We had a little trip around the world as part of our ‘Are we there yet’ activities. We often focus on a world theme at this time as we have as a setting celebrated the United Nations Day of the Child at this time for a few years now. Also Children had been on holiday and for day trips and these activities encouraged them to talk about their experiences. We tried magnetic fishing, made passports, talked about transport and how we travelled to our holiday, made trains from shapes, made flags, talked about China, France and Australia and had a round the world animal scavenger hunt which helped us use and learn positional language such as at the top, behind and next to.

We practised our circus skills during the Carnival and Celebrations activities. The children were very interested in the fact that the Circus had come to town. Some of them passed the Big Top on the way to Daisy Chain. We made circus ponies, learnt balancing and throwing and catching skills, we did magic mark making, balloon printing and played with the magic cup and ball game.

During the last week of term we had Wizard of Oz role play in the garden. The older children in particular had enjoyed hearing various versions of the story. They particularly liked playing in the tower made from a large box.

Wizard of Oz themed play

We celebrated the end of term with our Disco day followed by our Leaver’s Party at Splodges Soft Play.

The School year is whizzing by. During the autumn terms we explored the theme of The Forest we thought about Bears and the Gruffalo amongst other things. A little hedgehog was found in the Daisy Chain garden.

We all enjoyed our usual Christmas activities. The Nativity play and Christmas party and a trip to Westbury Infant School to see the reception children in their play.

During our 2 induction days at the beginning of term we welcomed our new arrivals and their families.The key persons inducted their new key children explaining the routines and layout and learnt about their children.

Sarah had bought some new toys for the children to use. Here is Ginger Bear trying some of them out .

Having access to the new top garden is amazing there is so much more room for everyone to play.

The new book corner is so cosy and relaxing, perfect for snuggling up with a book.

At Daisy Chain we have been improving our awareness and understanding of British Values and our Prevent Duty. At Daisy Chain the British Values are experienced by the children throughout their sessions through teaching and modelling by adults. The British Values are Democracy, The rule of Law, Indivudal Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance of different Faiths and Beliefs.

We had a very busy summer at Daisy Chain. During the week nearest Father’s day dads, uncles and grandads popped in to play.

We enjoyed learning about different countries from around the world. Especially the day we explored Turkey with tasty cheese rolls and baklava baked by one of the Dads who came to visit and tell us all about the country. We also explored lots of other countries visiting a new one each day sampling snacks from the area and trying out activities from The Netherlands, China and Italy to name but a few.

Later in the term we read the story of Noah’s Ark and tried out colour mixing, painting rainbows,making boats and we tasted snacks of every colour.

Near the end of term 6 we explored physical activities from threading to football skills.

We were all very excitied when the new top lawn was fenced and there was room to really run about.

At the end of term we said farewell to our leavers who were moving on to ‘Big School’ with an end of term party at Splodges Soft play in Westbury.

During terms 3 and 4 the children at Daisy Chain took part in activities that would help them learn about familiar routines. We looked at routines in the setting such as getting ready for snack time….. washing hands, finding your name, choosing what colour plate to have. We looked at our name cards to support children when they self register for snack and on arrival. We thought about choosing toys for the day and made collages from catalogues and we talked about routines at home sauch as what do the children do before they go to bed.

As lots of the children love Thomas the Tank Engine we provided a range of activities based on these books. We made trains from shapes , drew our own tracks, looked at time and turned the whole room into a station for role play.

During Chinese New Year we listened to Chinese music as we did Dragon Dancing, we made fans, dragon puppets, lucky red envelpes, lanterns, and panda pictures.

Because of World Book Day we spent 2 weeks exploring activities based on our favourite books. We made our own Elmer the patchwork elephant, counted out apples for 10 apples up on top, made hand print Gruffalos, baked bread using a cookery book, practised writing numbers on a phone and talked about the phone book and coloured the hungry caterpillar by numbers.

September saw the arrival of our new Bug Hotel in the garden, filled with all kinds of recycled materials to provide cosy nesting and hibernating places for mini beasts.

We began the new year by settling in our new arrivals who had their own induction sessions. The children found these quieter sessions without the older children helpful as it gave them time to become familiar with their surroundings and to get to know their Key Persons.

‘We;re going on a Bear Hunt’ was the theme of the first set of activities and the children took part in activities such as threading bears, bear pictures made from different sized circles, ordering bears by size, counting bears, swirling whirling snow storms, bear puzzles and making honey sandwiches.

‘Every Child A Talker’ or ECAT is an assessment tool used in the setting to monitor children’s speech , language, understanding and attention and listening and we based our second set of activities around these areas of language development. Sorting by type what do we wear/what do we eat?, asking what objects are used for for example tooth brush, scissors, looking at the first 6 Jolly Phonics letter sounds (S AT P I N) and their actions, listening games, action words, sound lotto, musical instruments and Simon Says.

We then moved on to look at activities with a Shape, colour and size theme. We counted button spots on dogs, made cats and houses from shapes, sorted buttons by colour and counted them, we used the Kindle and played a shaped themed programme on it, looked at tall and short and measured objects and people matched and named shapes with a Mr Man theme, and tried colour mixing to make dinosaurs using stencils

Ginger Bear’s Itallian cousin Gino went on hoiday to Venice with Pam and had a lovely time eating ice cream and riding on Gondolas. He brought back his holiday pictures which can be found on Ginger Bear’s Face Book page.Christmas was celebrated in the usual Daisy Chain fashion decorating the tree, making decorations and cards, practising Christmas songs and dressing up for our Nativity Play. Again this year we asked the children to retell the Christmas story in their own words which was very amusing apparently Mary and Joseph lived a long time ago’like when the dinosaurs were dead’ and Joseph worked at ‘fixing lifts and hammering on tables’ the angel that came to visit Mary was called ‘Angel Heaven’. When the angels visited the shepherds they sang ‘laalaalaa’ and ‘Let it Go’ (a sign of the times there I feel). Thank you to al those that supported out Christmas fund raising event after the Play. The term ended with an excellent party, all the Daisy Ladies dressed in their festive outfits, Dave Hickory entertained us all and Father Christmas arrived with gifts.

During term 6 we again enjoyed having the children’s Dads visit as part of our ‘Father’s Day week’. It was interesting for the Dads to see what their children get up to during their time at Daisy Chain and good for the children to share their favourite activities with their fathers.We celebrated the United Nations day of the Child with a selection of activities and snacks from around the world. We made Malaysian Kites, Chinese Janzies, painted with Italian spaghetti and made Dutch windmill pictures to name but a few.

Daisy Chain’s teddy Ginger Bear had a visit from his Italian cousin Gino.

At the end of term we said farewell and good luck to all of our school leavers with an excellent party at Splodges Soft Play in Westbury . The new term begins on 4th September.